After 19 years of running, I had decided that now was the time to tackle my first serious marathon. This is to be my third, at 18 years of age I struggled through Seattle in 3:31 and last summer I ran the Uberthons Oregon Marathon as a pacer for my wife in 4:30. After a couple of years of consistently strong halfs, three under 1:16, I figured it was time to make my mark in…
I have to be honest here, one of the biggest things that keeps me running is the feeling of going fast. Not just all out sprinting, but hitting that sweet spot where all of the bodies systems are in sync to get in a mode that I call ‘cruising’, the actual pace dependent upon the distance. Trying to hit that on race day is tough, especially for the shorter distances. In the half marathon, if…
I’m sure a couple of you are quite perplexed by the ‘LFD’ in the title. It is merely a play on the more well-known runners term, LSD (Long Slow Distance). Only in the LFD, the pace is a bit more heated. I have signed up for the Champoeg 30K on March 7th as a training/benchmark run for the Eugene Marathon. The goal is to run close to marathon goal pace and find out how that affects…
In starting this post, I found some cool stats on the Running USA website. In 2013 there were over 15 million race finishers in the US. At one single race, over 55 thousand people crossed the line. This surge in popularity points to a ‘cool’ label for running that definitely did not exist when I started seventeen years ago. But even with the acceptance of running, there is still a niche that is definitely not mainstream.…
Goals are set and regarded in different manners. Some are meant to be achieved, others are just pipe dreams. Whether or not it is a positive factor depends totally on the mindset of the goal setter. I had 9 distance related time goals, from the 400 clear up to the half marathon, and achieved none of them. I fell 4 races short of my 28 race goal, and only managed to win 13 when the…
Most people get a certain point in life when they start to desire fewer objects around the holidays. Instead, they tend to want experiences, with a few really expensive objects on their wish list. On that note, I would love a special edition Lamborghini, awesome times with friends and family, and at least once in my life, the perfect race. Don’t get me wrong, I have been in many awesome races in my life, currently…
In this age of the ubiquitous cell phone, people are constantly connected. How many people? You can figure over 90 percent, and if you consider the population under 40 the number is closer to 97 percent. The average person checks their phone 150 times a day. What are we looking for? It raises the question of whether we own the phone or the phone owns us. Runners are no different, as almost every runner I…
Popular belief has the number of words in the English language at about one million. According to the late comedian George Carlin, there are only 7 dirty words (sure there are more, but most are a variation on that 7), which even led to an official Supreme Court decision regarding words too racy to be aired on television. As most of you know, they are almost all four letter words. I would like to suggest…
In a perfect world, I would lace up the shoes 6 days a week to put some miles in. With the right amount of planning and training, my goals and abilities would be quicker than what I currently do. But alas, this is not the case. As always, having three kids can affect availability, in addition to holding two jobs since February. Then there are the times where internal constraints such as hunger or fatigue…
It is not necessary to be ‘fast’ to have goals, and the height and drive to hit those goals is set by the individual. Racing can be all about numbers and the set distances makes it easier to compare all the events run through the course of a year or years. Even though the difficulty level between courses can vary greatly, it is still worth cross referencing those times to compare effort levels and fitness…
